The girls wanted to check out the beachside town of Vina del Mar. I skipped that because well, we have plenty of beaches back home and they rarely differ that much from all the ones I’ve been to around the world. Maybe a different language but still essentially the same kind of places and people go there. Plus the weather was quite cool and overcast, weather we haven’t seen since La Paz.
Valparaiso Street
I wandered down and around the streets taking photos as I went until i reached “El Plan”. this is the flat bit at the bottom of the hill and where the port and main businesses seem to be. However being a Sunday it was a bit “dead” and almost eeire. Which fit in well with the state of decay some building were in.
Valparaiso
The port area had the usual tourist souvenirs for sale. There seemed to be a lot of people there to do very little. I wandered towards the western end of the port, thinking I may take an ascensor up to the military and naval museum, but the ascensor didn’t appear to be working. The ascensors are best described as a lift, however they go up the side of the hill at a slight angle, the cabin always remaining parallel to the ground. They used to be steam powered but now they all use electricity to move people both up and down the hills of Valparaiso. A good website exists that has all the ascensors and only a few still operate and many are no longer in existancehttp://www.ascensoresvalparaiso.org/.
Ascensores
I had a lovely lunch at a restaurant called Fauna, with a view over parts of Valparaiso. I have learnt that if I order my steak done “medio” or medium, I’ll get it medium rare how I have my steak back home. Seems like the Chileans like their meat raw!
I wandered around more streets up on the hills after lunch to work it all off. I returned for an afternoons rest and the girls returned from their trip to Vina del Mar. They have since indicated they had a huge lunch of fish and chips and are not hungry for dinner now. They also suggested we go to the place I went for lunch. I think today we are just all out of Sync and we only have tomorrow left as our last full day together. We will make the journey back to Santiago for a night, before all our flights depart on Tuesday.
Valparaiso
Valparaiso